“The cost, whether measured in human misery today, or in loss of hope for tomorrow, is simply too high. We have to turn and face [HIV/AIDS] head on.”

Un Secretary-General Kofi Annan

1. HIV/AIDS is at last being recognised as a humanitarian disaster and is rightfully receiving the due attention it requires. With prevalence rates now rising to unprecedented levels of over 30% amongst adults in several countries in southern Africa, the region is bracing itself to weather the destructive forces of the disease on life expectancy, food security, development gains and general wellbeing.

2. The paper presented to the African Regional Conference in 2002, held in Cairo, discussed the impacts of HIV/AIDS on food security. The focus of this year’s paper is on FAO’s response to the changing context of agricultural development as it is being shaped by the epidemic. The paper is presented in three parts: the first provides an update on the state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region; the second provides an overview of the breadth and depth of FAO’s responses to date; and the third concludes by identifying areas which require further action and follow-up.

1. The HIV/AIDS Epidemic

3. HIV/AIDS is currently one of the greatest threats to global development and stability. Since the emergence of the epidemic in the early 1980s, more than 60 million people worldwide have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and over 20 million have died from AIDS. At present, approximately 42 million people are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS, of whom 5 million acquired HIV in 2002 alone. In the same year, AIDS claimed more than 3 million lives, most of them young adult breadwinners.

4. Sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest hit region of the world. In its total population of 711 million, about 30 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, more than 15 million have died from AIDS, and more than 11 million have lost at least one parent to the disease (UNAIDS, 2003). Adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rates of 10 per cent are common in many countries. In parts of Southern and East Africa, rates greater than 15 per cent are not exceptional; Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Botswana report rates of over 30 per cent and are still rising. The AIDS-related excess mortality has a profound impact on the demographic composition of communities and households. By 2010, AIDS is projected to leave 20 million African children under 15 years of age without one or both parents (UNAIDS and WHO, 2002). Moreover, the worst impact of the epidemic is still expected to come; so far, few countries have taken measures sufficient to see a decrease in their national infection rates.

5. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a long-term event, lasting many decades which unfold in three waves: HIV prevalence, AIDS deaths, and wider impacts (De Waal, 2003). The world is in the third decade of the epidemic and at present the ‘impact’ wave is developing in Africa. As impoverished families try to cope with the HIV/AIDS-associated morbidity and mortality, a significant depletion of assets usually occurs, sending many into destitution. Community safety nets are breaking down because many households require assistance to meet their food, cash, care and labour needs, without being able to repay assistance in kind. The epidemic is also decimating staff of governmental as well as non-governmental institutions, thus fuelling widespread social and economic breakdown. In some countries, more school teachers die annually than can be trained. If left unchecked, this situation could give rise to socio-economic calamities of staggering proportions, including widespread food shortages and a weakened capacity for effective governance.

6. The humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa of 2002 – 03 highlighted the complex interactions between HIV/AIDS, food security and agriculture. The combination of HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality with climatic variability, soil deterioration, ineffective water control, inadequate farming techniques and lack of extension services, has greatly undermined agricultural production and associated livelihood activities. Livestock, crucial to the coping strategies of vulnerable households, have been depleted beyond normal levels in several areas due to disease, theft and sale. Trade barriers and poor infrastructure have hampered the transfer of agricultural surpluses and reduced access to markets, impeding regional and in-country capacities to respond to localized food shortages. As a result, communities have become more vulnerable to AIDS-associated problems, such as declining education levels and increased crime. Although the famine was averted, the ability of many farmers in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe to recover is severely compromised by the effects of HIV/AIDS. Unlike usual emergencies, the disease takes its toll particularly amongst adults in their most productive years and, during prolonged illness prior to death, household assets are often severely depleted. In some areas, households are spending more than 100% of their annual income on medical care. Even in non-emergency settings, the impact of HIV/AIDS is seriously undermining efforts to reduce poverty and is reversing many of the development gains made during recent decades. Seven million African workers died between 1985–2000 in the 25 most affected countries; it is likely that at least one quarter of economically productive adults in Southern Africa may die within next five to 10 years.

7. Addressing HIV/AIDS is now high on the development and humanitarian assistance agenda both within countries, through regional initiatives (such as the Abuja and Maseru Declarations, and the SADC strategic framework), as well as throughout the UN system. The latter includes the General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS in 2001, the appointment of a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for HIV/AIDS in Africa (Mr Stephen Lewis) in 2001, the establishment of the UN Regional Inter-Agency Coordination and Support Office (RIACSO) in 2002, and the formation of the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa in 2003. An inter-agency policy document of 2003, ‘Organizing the UN Response to the Triple Threat of Food Insecurity, Weakened Capacity for Governance and AIDS, Particularly in Southern and Eastern Africa’, sets out a coherent system-wide policy and programming approach for the UN on HIV/AIDS.

8. The agricultural and rural sectors present a unique opportunity to combat the epidemic in most African countries. Up to 80 percent of the population in some African countries depend on subsistence agriculture; crops, livestock and other natural resource products are the mainstay of economy and export earnings; and agriculture, forestry and fisheries provide vital safety nets. Good nutrition is often the only means for rural people to slow progression from HIV to AIDS. For the minority with access to AIDS drugs, improved nutrition enables them to be utilized effectively. Hence FAO, with the UN mandate for improving nutrition and food security, agriculture and rural development, has a major responsibility to contribute to tackling the impacts of the disease. The Organization has the opportunity to identify and promote ways to raise awareness and prevent the transmission of HIV amongst rural communities, and to draw on capacities of the natural resource environment (agriculture, fisheries and forestry) to provide AIDS care and mitigating strategies.

2. FAO’s Response

9. In order to engage effectively in responding to the widespread and long-term impacts of HIV/AIDS, particularly as it threatens to erode development gains and undermine the productive capacity of many countries in Africa, FAO is identifying new modes of working and innovative activities. The shift in operational focus is described in the first section below, and the details of in-country activities are presented in the subsequent section.

2.1 Implications of HIV/AIDS for FAO’s work

10. HIV/AIDS is not just another problem of health and under-development. It is a unique disease because of its devastating, systemic and cumulative impact. It stands apart from diseases like malaria due to the scale of morbidity and mortality among persons aged between 15 and 50 years, as well as its pattern of contagion. The effects of long illness and premature death amongst these age groups have profound implications for the agricultural sector, causing acute labour shortages at household and community levels; altering established technical relations between labour, land and capital; causing irreversible depletion of rural household assets; triggering the adoption of adverse, hard-to-reverse response strategies; weakening community structure and straining community safety nets; diminishing the resilience of farming and livelihood systems; reducing the capacity of household and communities to recover; and intensifying their vulnerability to food shortages.

11. In aggregate terms, the epidemic produces new mechanisms of impoverishment and thus creates new patterns of poverty and livelihood insecurity. The outcome is the emergence of a new category of poor people. The ‘AIDS-poor’ include: households with chronically ill young adults and those that have suffered a young adult death during the last two to five years; households headed by single parents, the elderly or orphans; and households fostering orphans. Women are amongst the most affected: not only are they more vulnerable to HIV infection biologically but they also bear the brunt of the social and economic costs of the disease.

12. This changing environment has three principal implications for the nature and style of FAO’s work. First, the epidemic diminishes the relevance and effectiveness of many conventional agricultural and food security strategies, especially those that are labour-intensive and market-oriented. Second, the reality of HIV/AIDS calls for new ways of identifying and targeting vulnerable groups because traditional classifications are no longer relevant. Third, the epidemic requires new strategies to effect development in a changing context with different needs and priorities. Thus FAO has to identify new modes of working, requiring closer collaboration between technical units within FAO, as well as between agencies, and joint initiatives between sectors. FAO’s experience with people-centred approaches can provide appropriate entry points and responses to affected households, communities and institutions.

13. The World Food Summit: five years later (held in 2002); the 2001 and 2003 sessions of FAO’s Committee on Food Security1; and the African Regional Conference of 20022 all acknowledged the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on food security and pledged to fight the epidemic. FAO has created a new inter-departmental entity in the Medium Term Plan, 2004–2009, entitled “Analysis and mitigation of the impact of HIV/AIDS on food security and rural development”. During the last year, several technical services of FAO have reviewed their operations in order to identify opportunities for HIV/AIDS mainstreaming. FAO is collaborating with the other Rome-based UN agencies (IFAD and WFP) to address the epidemic more effectively along the continuum from preparedness to humanitarian relief and long-term agricultural and rural development.

2.2 FAO’s activities to date

14. FAO’s activities are broad, covering a wide spectrum of initiatives from preventing infection with HIV through to mitigating the impacts of HIV/AIDS. Initiatives take place at all levels, from the grassroots (individuals, their households and communities), through national policy environments and institutions (in particular, the ministries of agriculture) to the global level.

(i) Global and regional initiatives

15. FAO has played a key role in international advocacy, drawing the attention of key players from international agencies, donors, governments and NGOs to the inter-linkages between HIV/AIDS, food security, nutrition and the role of the agricultural sector in mitigation. Specific activities include:

Inter-agency collaboration:

Participating in the FAO/UNAIDS Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS, launched in December 2001, which works on policy, strategy development, advocacy, training and capacity building around food, agriculture and HIV/AIDS issues;

Mobilizing key players through informed debate by organizing a multi-stakeholder consultation on mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural development (held in Rome in December 20013);

Hosting a joint inter-agency meeting with WHO in Rome in 2002 to facilitate cooperation among all the UN agencies working in HIV/AIDS and nutrition;

Organizing an event on AIDS, nutrition and food security, together with WFP and IFAD, at the international conference in AIDS held in Barcelona in 2002;

Producing jointly with WHO a manual on nutritional care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS4 and an associated training course for health workers and care-providers;

Organizing a high level briefing on HIV/AIDS and food security (with WFP and IFAD) at the General Assembly high level meeting on HIV/AIDS held in New York in September 2003.

Advocacy:

Organizing a strategy workshop with UNDP (held in Bangkok in December 2002) with African and Asian government officials, aid workers and UN specialists to develop strategies for encouraging farmers on both continents to use their agricultural know-how and traditional knowledge to help their communities survive the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS;

Organizing a dissemination workshop5 with GTZ, OXFAM and HSRC (held in Pretoria in May 2003) with participants representing governments, international and local NGOs, UN bodies, academic institutions and donors sharing their experiences in mitigating the impacts of HIV and AIDS through agriculture and rural development, with the longer-term objective of developing good practice and influencing policies;

Organizing an annual symposium in FAO on World AIDS Day, together with IFAD and WFP;

Raising awareness about impacts of HIV/AIDS undermining household food and nutrition security in Southern Africa through collaborating with the BBC to produce a 30 minute video “Sowing Seeds of Hunger” which was broadcast worldwide in 2003 and is now available to national broadcasters and advocacy groups;

Promoting access to information through creating a FAO website dedicated to issues of HIV/AIDS and food security in 20036.

Emergencies and early warning:

Exploring the role of FAO and mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into emergency responses7;

Participating in an inter-agency collaboration (under the umbrella of the Inter Agency Standing Committee Task Force) to produce “Guidelines for HIV/AIDS Interventions in Emergency Settings”8, ensuring together with WFP that sufficient attention is paid to nutrition and food security aspects of emergencies;

Exploring possibilities of incorporating indicators of HIV/AIDS impact into existing early warning systems of food insecurity and assessment frameworks, such as the Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) and the Global Information and Early Warning Systems (GIEWS);

Strengthening its capacity to address HIV/AIDS in emergencies through its Johannesburg (RIACSO) and Nairobi regional emergency coordinating units.

(ii) Policy and project environment

16. FAO is actively engaging in the debate about the need to better understand the relationship between agricultural policy and the HIV/AIDS epidemic9. Poverty, inequality, food and livelihood insecurity all influence the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Agricultural policies often provide a framework to address these wider concerns and in doing so, have an impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic itself10. For example, agricultural policies that – either deliberately or unwittingly – promote migration may contribute to the spread of AIDS if adequate measures are not taken to avoid it. Without taking the various impacts of HIV/AIDS into consideration, agricultural policy may be ineffective or impossible to implement (for example, due to labour shortages). The resistance of HIV-infected persons to the development of the full-blown disease can be increased with good nutrition. Issues of this nature should be considered during policy design and appraisal to ensure that national agricultural policies play a role in combating the pandemic. At the programme and project level, FAO is working to integrate considerations of HIV/AIDS into design, monitoring and evaluation procedures.

Specific activities include:

Initiating and facilitating a workshop for senior policy makers entitled “Agricultural policy and HIV/AIDS: Understanding the linkages” (held in Maputo in November 2003);

Reviewing the impact and opportunities of agricultural programmes and projects on vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS11;

Developing indicators for impact assessment of HIV/AIDS on households and rural communities based on their livelihoods asset base13;

Reviewing FAO Investment Centre projects through an HIV/AIDS lens;

Drawing lessons from community-level actions.

(iii) Sectoral studies

17. In order to sharpen the focus of policy recommendations and interventions, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of their context. Since 1988, FAO has commissioned a range of baseline studies in order to understand the dynamics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in various aspects of livelihoods in rural communities. Specific attention is paid to capturing the gender and age dynamics of the epidemic. Recent studies include:

Situational analyses of rural livelihoods with special reference to gender and HIV/AIDS in communities in Namibia14, Uganda and Zambia15. Emerging themes include the reduced capacity of HIV/AIDS affected households to adapt new and more market-oriented practices and crops in Uganda; the effects of HIV/AIDS on the livelihoods of vulnerable groups, in particular female-headed households fostering orphans in Zambia; and asset stripping in Namibia in the context of the existing policy framework relating to property and inheritance rights16;

Using a sustainable livelihoods framework to examine the impact of HIV/AIDS on the livelihoods’ asset base of rural communities in northern Zambia;

Impacts of the disease on the commercial agricultural sector in Kenya17;

Educating fishing communities in Benin and Uganda to understand the dynamics of their livelihoods and their specific vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS18;

The role of natural forests and woodlands as an economic and nutritional safety net providing access to food, medicinal and other products which help households survive during times of crisis, complemented by the productive use of fallow land through tree planting (which also serves to secure land tenure)20;

A review of practices implemented to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS at the farm household level in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe21;

18. The capacity of many government ministries has been severely weakened as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, through staff attrition, compounded by the loss of their knowledge and expertise. Simultaneously, there is an acute need to re-orientate service delivery to meet the changing composition of communities and their challenging demands as they struggle to survive in the face of the HIV/AIDS crisis. FAO is helping to bridge this gap by:

Strengthening institutional capacity:

Conducting studies on the impacts of HIV/AIDS on agricultural extension organizations in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe and identifying possible institutional responses23;

Assisting ministries of agriculture to create capacity to address HIV/AIDS within their organizations24; for example, in Ghana, training extension agents and integrating HIV/AIDS component into regional and district agricultural development plans; in Uganda, mainstreaming HIV/AIDS messages into agricultural extension25;

Reviewing the institutional support required by the forestry service in Malawi in the context of HIV/AIDS;

Producing leaflets for extension staff (such as social or health workers, foresters, fisheries staff, livestock specialists and farm mechanization officers) to enable them to integrate HIV/AIDS concerns into their field activities26;

Providing technical assistance to agricultural staff in Uganda in preparing HIV/AIDS resource materials for training government and CBOs working in the agricultural sector;

Training national staff responsible for producing and using agricultural statistics in integrating a gender and HIV/AIDS focus into their analysis;

Strengthening communication materials:

Developing communication strategies for the prevention and mitigation of HIV/AIDS in rural communities and households in Sub-Saharan Africa27, including the development of non-formal education curriculum materials and rural radio programmes in Cameroon, and rural radio programmes for the youth in Cameroon and Mali, and a multi-media communications package in Uganda;

Encouraging more effective inter-sectoral responses to dealing with HIV/AIDS and nutrition, by developing a national/district advocacy-planning workshop module to better incorporate nutrition objectives into HIV/AIDS programmes and to ensure that HIV/AIDS considerations are taken into account in food security planning and nutrition improvement programmes;

Preparing advocacy materials for community use in Uganda by recording testimonies of widows who had suffered the loss of household assets through property grabbing following the death of their husbands.

(v) Household and community levels

19. In addition to the regular programme experiences, FAO has two activities which provide vital entry points to addressing HIV/AIDS at the field level: the Emergency Programme and the Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS). Both provide timely insights and valuable lessons for identifying suitable approaches to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic through the FAO global programme.

20. Under the Emergency Programme, FAO is integrating a rehabilitation dimension into the emergency activities (providing vulnerable households with access to seeds and other essential farm inputs), particularly in the southern African countries affected by the humanitarian crisis of food insecurity and HIV/AIDS. SPFS, with ongoing activities in more than 70 countries, has extensive experience in designing and implementing community-based projects to promote agricultural production. FAO is developing new initiatives to ameliorate the productive capacity of the agricultural sector following the impacts of HIV/AIDS.

21. A broad range of activities is being implemented at this level. They are grouped into four principal themes. Gender- and age-based considerations are cross-cutting issues which form an integral part of all these activities.

22. Activities include:

Improving access to farm inputs:

Using a voucher system (with a monetary value) to enable vulnerable households to purchase seeds and other farm inputs at locally held input trade fairs (for example, Mozambique). Input trade fairs strengthen local market mechanisms, retain money in the local economy and provide a market outlet for local produce. They also provide an entrée for introducing improved inputs into the farming system, develop the organizing capacity of local government services and CBOs, and provide an opportunity for other activities such as HIV/AIDS awareness raising;

Widening the scope of the voucher system to enable vulnerable households to purchase small livestock and hire farm power services for land preparation (for example, Lesotho).

Promoting awareness and understanding about the importance of nutrition in treatment of HIV-infected individuals and other household members;

Participating in expert consultations on nutrient requirements in PLWHA;

Meeting the special needs of HIV/AIDS affected communities through technical support for the nutritional care of people living with HIV/AIDS, school education and communication, and CBOs involved with HIV/AIDS, food security and nutrition (in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia);

Promoting the use of school gardens as a means of improving the nutritional status of diets and developing skills, whilst complementing WFP/UNICEF school feeding programmes (Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia).

Securing the asset base:

Reducing gender- and age-based differences in access to, and control of, resources and livelihood assets. Particular attention has been paid to the impact of HIV/AIDS on land issues and women’s land rights, with fieldwork in Kenya, Lesotho, Uganda and South Africa29;

Para-legal support has been given to protect households’ asset base, particularly land, for AIDS-widows and orphans (Namibia);

Strengthening the asset base and facilities of rural communities in order to increase agricultural productivity, through providing water pumps, wells, local storage facilities, and supporting initiatives such as small scale irrigation;

Establishing community flocks as a source of small livestock for distribution to vulnerable households in the community, a source of income for the group managing flock, a basis for passing on skills in animal husbandry and demonstrating simple low cost improvements in animal husbandry (Lesotho).

Strengthening resilience:

Promoting labour saving technologies and practices to overcome labour shortages30 and labour peaks associated with farming (for example, by reducing land preparation through reduced tillage and using cover crops to suppress weeds) and reducing the burden of daily household tasks (through promoting simple technologies such as roofwater harvesting and food processing, woodlots and agroforestry). Studies on labour constraints and technologies have been conducted in Kenya31 and Tanzania32 with IFAD, and on technology dissemination in Uganda33. Conservation farming initiatives are being supported in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. A field handbook of labour saving/spreading technologies and practices is in preparation.

Introducing junior farmer life schools for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) to maintain and strengthen their knowledge and skills: these school will not only enable OVCs to regain their self-esteem and confidence but will also impart skills which will enable older children to make a living. This concept, drawing on the experiences of farmer field/life schools which have operated successfully in East Africa34 and Asia, is being piloted with OVCs in Mozambique, in association with WFP.

Developing field-level methodologies to enable communities to record, store and share agrobiodiversity and indigenous knowledge, both within and between communities, with a view to improving their nutrition, easing their workloads, gaining medicinal relief, and securing more sustainable livelihoods in the face of HIV/AIDS. This work draws on the LinKS35 project (exploring linkages between the crucial issues of local knowledge systems, gender roles and relationships, food provision, and the conservation and management of agrobiodiversity in Southern Africa) and agrobiodiversity studies in Ethiopia, Mali, Tanzania and Uganda36. Community knowledge centres as a mechanism for developing and sharing local knowledge about agrobiodiversity and indigenous knowledge are being explored in Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia.

Reducing chronic hunger in Bondo district, western Kenya through developing practical and replicable approaches to assist rural communities to improve their food security through food security field schools, support for community safety nets and para-legal assistance services to vulnerable groups.

Supporting the livelihoods of HIV/AIDS affected households and encouraging livelihoods diversification through introducing low-labour input enterprises (such as dairy goats, pigs and chicken), farm diversification, value adding and off-farm activities. These activities are also used to support home-based HIV/AIDS care groups, with new enterprises bringing multiple benefits for carers and their patients.

3. Recommendations for follow-up

23. As a result of the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS on the agricultural sector and rural economies of many African countries, several of FAO’s key strategic objectives are now in jeopardy. Under threat are the pursuit of sustainable rural livelihoods and equitable access to resources; access of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups to sufficient, safe and nutritionally adequate food; preparedness for, and effective and sustainable response to, food and agricultural emergencies. There are two critical areas for FAO’s future strategy37: one, to prevent the development of further double emergencies of HIV/AIDS and food shortages in Africa and elsewhere; and two, to assist member states to develop effective agriculture and rural resource-based mitigation and rehabilitation responses to the epidemic.

24. As has been demonstrated in section 2 above, the Organization has started moving towards defining new parameters for agricultural development and emergency assistance; establishing links between short-term and long-term crisis response; and redefining and prioritising working with vulnerable beneficiary groups, including orphans, vulnerable children and adolescent youths. However, FAO has not yet been able to mount a response which is commensurate with the scale required to effectively address the HIV/AIDS crisis at present, let alone provide the level of service which will be required to deal with the impacts of the disease as they will unfold and evolve during the coming years.

25. As an Organization, FAO needs to develop a corporate strategy for addressing HIV/AIDS in the context of agricultural and rural development. The Organization and its staff members, both collectively and individually, have to recognise the relevance of the epidemic for its work in agriculture and rural sectors; internalise the responsibility for addressing HIV/AIDS considerations in all aspects of its mandate; adapt and develop its actions to work within this new and evolving environment; develop new ways of targeting priority groups; and move forward with new alliances within FAO, with other international and national players, and at the community level.

26. In view of the foregoing, three priority areas may be identified for further action:

The strengthening of institutional capacity through increasing collaboration with governments, NGOs and civil society: The focus should be on: assessing the effects of the epidemic on the availability of human resources and technical capacity in the areas of agriculture and food security; develop the skills of government staff to respond to new situations arising as a result of HIV/AIDS, such as working with vulnerable groups and the use of safety net programmes; accelerate staff capacity replenishment through shorter and more focused training courses; strengthen the capacity of ministries of agriculture and/or rural development and civil society to identify, prioritise, formulate and submit project proposals in order to access funds for HIV/AIDS activities, available locally or internationally, and to utilise them effectively; ensure resources and funds flow through to grassroots organizations actively and directly engaged in addressing HIV/AIDS at the community level; and revise monitoring and evaluation procedures to capture the effect of initiatives to reduce the incidence, and mitigate the effects, of HIV/AIDS and share these experiences with others.

The review and strengthening of agricultural policy and programming: to mainstream HIV/AIDS considerations into the agricultural policy environment through reviewing and reorientating key policies and national framework documents and sectoral strategies for agriculture; integrate agricultural considerations into national HIV/AIDS action plans; institutionalise HIV/AIDS safety nets (such as access to a balanced food basket and protection of livelihood assets) within government systems through budgetary allocations and mechanisms for delivery; and integrate HIV/AIDS concerns into food security information and early warning systems.

The development of an integrated response to cover the emergency-to-development continuum whilst maintaining a humanitarian perspective. The target is to secure food production in the short term, whilst providing a basis for sector rehabilitation and recovery through developing self-reliance and sustainability at the household and community level in the longer term.

27. The responses to date demonstrate FAO’s capacity to innovate. However, in order to realise the Organization’s enormous potential to contribute to tackling HIV/AIDS, the activities need to be scaled up, integrated and sustained. Without this change in tempo, the Organization will not only fail to address the most pressing needs of millions of the rural poor in Africa but also may not be able to overcome the epidemic’s undermining threat to its ongoing development initiatives. In the words of FAO’s Director-General, Jacques Diouf, “The potential for real growth and development in Africa is dependent upon successfully addressing key challenges - hunger and poverty, agriculture production and HIV/AIDS38."

References

De Waal, A. (2003) HIV/AIDS and Emergencies: Challenges of Measurement and Modelling, Presentation for the RIACSO Technical Consultation on Measuring Vulnerability in the Light of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic, 9-11 September 2003, Johannesburg: RIACSO

UNAIDS and WHO (2002) AIDS epidemic update: December 2002, Geneva: UNAIDS and WHO